In one fell swoop during a training session, he sprained both his ACL and his ankle, and he was forced to pull out of January’s UFC on FOX 2 bout with fellow bantamweight Johnny Bedford.

The worst, though, was yet to come.

After working through the night at the firehouse, the Indiana firefighter was driving home at 7:15 a.m., talking to his father on his cell phone, and anxious for some time off. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw a car swing left of center and directly into his path.

He assumed he was dead.

“I had already pulled out of the fight at this point, but three weeks prior to that fight, I actually got into a head-on car collision at about 60 miles per hour,” Wineland told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “I saw one headlight in my face, and I saw a side airbag going (off).

“I thought that side airbag was me dying. It scared the hell out of me.”

Luckily, the former WEC champion was in his beloved 2006 Cadillac CTS.

Which, as it turned out, is “one of the best crash-test-rated cars in the world,” Wineland said. “And I just sprained my wrist. That was it.”

With the injuries and his string of bad luck hopefully behind him, Wineland (18-8-1 MMA, 0-2 UFC) is now slated to fight Scott Jorgensen (13-5 MMA, 2-1 UFC) at Friday’s UFC on FX 3 event at BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Fla. As part of the Harley-Davidson Hometown Throwdown contest, fans voted Wineland vs. Jorgensen as the final addition to the FX-televised main card, which follows prelims on FUEL TV and Facebook.

In his UFC debut in March 2011, Wineland co-headlined UFC 148, and a title shot was on the line in his biggest fight to date. Wineland, a heavy underdog, won the first round, but he gave up the next two, and Faber got the judges’ nod.

In his next bout, he dropped a decision to Faber’s teammate, Joseph Benavidez, who fights for the UFC’s inaugural flyweight championship later this year.

Before his two-fight skid, Wineland, who won the first-ever WEC bantamweight title in 2006, was on a 6-1 run that included back-to-back “KO of the Night” awards over Will Campuzano and Ken Stone.

Now, he looks to avoid a three-fight losing streak – which would lead to a likely UFC release – against Jorgensen, who was on a 7-1 run before a decision loss to upcoming title challenger Renan Barao at UFC 143.

So what’s Wineland’s game plan for this pivotal fight?

“There’s really no game plan,” he said. “It’s a fight. You don’t plan a fight. Everybody says, ‘This is my game plan.’ But once that cage door closes, the game plan goes out the window. … I’m going to go in there and roll with the punches, I’m going to let my hands fly, I’m going to use my wrestling, and I’m going to get out of there with a win.

“I’m going to punch him a lot in the face and then put him on his back and finish him.”

MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.